]]>http://grahammurtaugh.com/?feed=rss2&p=29492http://grahammurtaugh.com/?p=2949over and overhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahammurtaugh/~3/8m6oaV9dNeU/
http://grahammurtaugh.com/?p=2943#respondWed, 13 Dec 2017 20:42:18 +0000http://grahammurtaugh.com/?p=2943over and over
we come through

the worst. we
survive ourselves–

every ex
-halation makes

room for
us, our

selves

—

*this poem is a re-working of a quote from Michael Eigen’s The Psychoanalytic Mystic

]]>http://grahammurtaugh.com/?feed=rss2&p=29430http://grahammurtaugh.com/?p=2943six unlit tiki torcheshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahammurtaugh/~3/gSkjT0j1NWA/
http://grahammurtaugh.com/?p=2937#respondSun, 13 Aug 2017 17:03:05 +0000http://grahammurtaugh.com/?p=2937Continue reading →]]>On a Sunday as I run by a balcony

body could fit in a small bone bowlwhat i know is salt: blood sweat tears semen this pillar is all i am at times at all times i am waiting on rain to come wear down wash awaythe lot of me my body is told to me to be a hard stance of legs wide as shoulders arms over chest & broad back & flexed hips only never the soft mystery crying out folding unfolding in secretnever the soft prostrate position of the dead the prone position of a laid-out body drenched in its own exertion and breath slowly slowingalive among many other bodies who know little of themselves less of any other body but salt on the skin collecting in the corner of the eye

this is the antidote. calm-talk. deep-breath. collarbone taptaptap. these ancient rapid-fire parts of me, myelinated slick and screaming bloody murder & fire in the theater in one breath need to ease it on down, baby. gaba it up. gobble it down. boggle a while, you know? pick up the brush. slap some paint on a canvas. don’t worry will it work. soothe to the sound of the brush. that one bright line just right, words spilled out, made flesh or nearly, the hand coming suddenly visible. that’s what we’re lurking here in the shadows for, hunt and peck, bags over our shoulders, noses to the ground. it’ll come we’re confident, even when we’re not. in those moments the breath becomes a second beast, moving in and out, stalking with us. spring-loaded with sleek muscle. lovely. waiting. patient. ready.

You see us in the streets and say ‘political games’. We protest
because our bodies tell us to move. We are working out
something far deeper than regime change. We are exorcising
trauma’s insidious grip. We put one foot in front of the other,
side by side, to announce we are alive, our bodies are
good, our minds are our own. We march to survive.